Mental health issues such as anxiety and depression are prevalent within academics from BSc students all the way to full professors. It is clear, however, that PhD students suffer the most given 1) the high pressure expectations of both daily responsibilities, as well as building a single large summative thesis; 2) PhD students must endure the difficult transition from being a student to being an independent researcher, which is often not guided or acknowledged; and 3) post-PhD plans are often unclear and dependant on the outcomes of the PhD itself. The mental health difficulties experience by all academics, however, is something that I wish to address using my 10+ years as an academic, mental health advocate, and someone who struggles with mental health issues. In this interactive talk/discussion, I will first outline some basics of mental health awareness at the level of the individual, including aspects such as failure, imposters syndrome, mental pain, isolation, competition, and the general feeling of being overwhelmed. I will then come to mental health management, and what we can do as individuals (as well as communities), to create a better future focused on mental well-being. This includes how to structure all aspects of your life within your Life Pillars, as well as how to approach your daily and weekly responsibilities through the management of your Life Resources. Throughout the talk, we will touch on aspects of managing your: life, schedule, data, projects, tasks, time, self-awareness, mental state, and more.

Lloyd Montgomery is a Software Engineering PhD Researcher at the University of Hamburg in Germany, working under Prof. Dr. Walid Maalej. He received his BSc and MSc from the University of Victoria, in BC Canada, working under Prof. Dr. Daniela Damian. While at the University of Victoria, he also studied other personal interests such as Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology. Currently, his primary research area is the quality of requirements, with a special focus on issue tracking systems. Additional interests include machine learning, general applications of NLP in RE, user-centric design and innovation, customer support processes, and recommender systems. He won the RE’17 best paper award for his machine learning design science research with IBM customer support. Lloyd’s academic service record includes serving as the RE’23 Publicity Chair, NLP4RE’22 Workshop Co-Chair, the RE’21 Artefact Co-Chair, a PC member for seven artefact tracks at RE, ICSE, and FSE, a PC member for NLP4RE and RE@Next! track, and he is currently the IST Publicity Co-Chair. Lloyd also enjoys activities outside work, including playing squash, billiards, video games, and piano, as well as learning German. For his community, Lloyd enjoys communicating and educating about science and mental health. He was the Director of Pint of Science Germany for four years, a volunteer-based non-profit that delivers science talks in 24+ German cities every year. He has also given talks on mental health, including in Sweden at the Blekinge Institute of Technology, in Berlin at Humbolt University of Berlin, and at the University of Cologne.